Farewell, My Lovely

3

A man named Nulty got the case, a lean-jawed sourpuss with long yellow hands which he kept folded over his kneecaps most of the time he talked to me. He was a detective-lieutenant attached to the 77th Street Division and we talked in a bare room with two small desks against opposite walls and room to move between them, if two people didn’t try it at once. Dirty brown linoleum covered the floor and the smell of old cigar butts hung in the air. Nulty’s shirt was frayed and his coat sleeves had been turned in at the cuffs. He looked poor enough to be honest, but he didn’t look like a man who could deal with Moose Malloy.

He lit half of a cigar and threw the match on the floor, where a lot of company was waiting for it. His voice said bitterly:

“Shines. Another shine killing. That’s what I rate after eighteen years in this man’s police department. No pix, no space, not even four lines in the want-ad section.”

I didn’t say anything. He picked my card up and read it again and threw it down.

“Philip Marlowe, Private Investigator. One of those guys, huh? Jesus, you look tough enough. What was you doing all that time?”

“All what time?”

“All the time this Malloy was twisting the neck of this smoke.”

“Oh, that happened in another room,” I said. “Malloy hadn’t promised me he was going to break anybody’s neck.”

“Ride me,” Nulty said bitterly. “Okey, go ahead and ride me. Everybody else does. What’s another one matter? Poor old Nulty. Let’s go on up and throw a couple of nifties at him. Always good for a laugh, Nulty is.”

“I’m not trying to ride anybody,” I said. “That’s the way it happened — in another room.”

“Oh, sure,” Nulty said through a fan of rank cigar smoke. “I was down there and saw, didn’t I? Don’t you pack no rod?”

“Not on that kind of a job.”

“What kind of a job?”

“I was looking for a barber who had run away from his wife. She thought he could be persuaded to come home.”

“You mean a dinge?”

“No, a Greek.”

“Okey,” Nulty said and spit into his wastebasket. “Okey. You met the big guy how?”

“I told you already. I just happened to be there. He threw a Negro out of the doors of Florian’s and I unwisely poked my head in to see what was happening. So he took me upstairs.”

“You mean he stuck you up?”

“No, he didn’t have the gun then. At least, he didn’t show one. He took the gun away from Montgomery, probably. He just picked me up. I’m kind of cute sometimes.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Nulty said. “You seem to pick up awful easy.”

“All right,” I said. “Why argue? I’ve seen the guy and you haven’t. He could wear you or me for a watch charm. I didn’t know he had killed anybody until after he left. I heard a shot, but I got the idea somebody had got scared and shot at Malloy and then Malloy took the gun away from whoever did it.”

“And why would you get an idea like that?” Nulty asked almost suavely. “He used a gun to take that bank, didn’t he?”

“Consider the kind of clothes he was wearing. He didn’t go there to kill anybody; not dressed like that. He went there to look for this girl named Velma that had been his girl before he was pinched for the bank job. She worked there at Florian’s or whatever place was there when it was still a white joint. He was pinched there. You’ll get him all right.”

“Sure,” Nulty said. “With that size and them clothes. Easy.”

“He might have another suit,” I said. “And a car and a hideout and money and friends. But you’ll get him.”

Nulty spit in the wastebasket again. “I’ll get him,” he said, “about the time I get my third set of teeth. How many guys is put on it? One. Listen, you know why? No space. One time there was five smokes carved Harlem sunsets on each other down on East Eighty-four. One of them was cold already. There was blood on the furniture, blood on the walls, blood even on the ceiling. I go down and outside the house a guy that works on the Chronicle, a newshawk, is coming off the porch and getting into his car. He makes a face at us and says, ‘Aw, hell, shines,’ and gets in his heap and goes away. Don’t even go in the house.”

“Maybe he’s a parole breaker,” I said. “You’d get some co-operation on that. But pick him up nice or he’ll knock off a brace of prowlies for you. Then you’ll get space.”

“And I wouldn’t have the case no more neither,” Nulty sneered.

The phone rang on his desk. He listened to it and smiled sorrowfully. He hung up and scribbled on a pad and there was a faint gleam in his eyes, a light far back in a dusty corridor.

“Hell, they got him. That was Records. Got his prints, mug and everything. Jesus, that’s a little something anyway.” He read from his pad. “Jesus, this is a man. Six five and one-half, two hundred sixty-four pounds, without his necktie. Jesus, that’s a boy. Well, the hell with him. They got him on the air now. Probably at the end of the hot car list. Ain’t nothing to do but just wait.” He threw his cigar into a spittoon.

“Try looking for the girl,” I said. “Velma. Malloy will be looking for her. That’s what started it all. Try Velma.”

“You try her,” Nulty said. “I ain’t been in a joy house in twenty years.”

I stood up. “Okey,” I said, and started for the door.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Nulty said. “I was only kidding. You ain’t awful busy, are you?”

I rolled a cigarette around in my fingers and looked at him and waited by the door.

“I mean you got time to sort of take a gander around for this dame. That’s a good idea you had there. You might pick something up. You can work under glass.”

“What’s in it for me?”

He spread his yellow hands sadly. His smile was cunning as a broken mousetrap. “You been in jams with us boys before. Don’t tell me no. I heard different. Next time it ain’t doing you any harm to have a pal.”

“What good is it gomg to do me?”

“Listen,” Nulty urged. “I’m just a quiet guy. But any guy in the department can do you a lot of good.”

“Is this for love — or are you paying anything in money?”

“No money,” Nulty said, and wrinkled his sad yellow nose. “But I’m needing a little credit bad. Since the last shake-up, things is really tough. I wouldn’t forget it, pal. Not ever.”

I looked at my watch. “Okey, if I think of anything, it’s yours. And when you get the mug, I’ll identify it for you. After lunch.” We shook hands and I went down the mud-colored hall and stairway to the front of the building and my car.

It was two hours since Moose Malloy had left Florian’s with the Army Colt in his hand. I ate lunch at a drugstore, bought a pint of bourbon, and drove eastward to Central Avenue and north on Central again. The hunch I had was as vague as the heat waves that danced above the sidewalk.

Nothing made it my business except curiosity. But strictly speaking, I hadn’t had any business in a month. Even a no-charge job was a change.